When Vash Chhabra started thinking about how to do marriage proposal to his girlfriend, Riiya Shukla, his mind went straight to her favorite Bollywood movies.
But instead of thinking of a scene with a combination of song and dance, he had another idea: the airport.
“In Bollywood movies eight out of 10 times the couple meets at the airport”, he told CNNi. “The female actor is leaving. The man runs to the airport to stop her and they live happily ever after.”
After all, airports have played an important role in their relationship.
Originally from Auckland, Riiya Shukla lives in Melbourne, Australia, where she works for the Victorian state government. She and Vash Chhabra, who still lives in New Zealand, are in a long-distance relationship.
So the man in love hatched a plan. He would arrange for their people to be at Auckland Airport when his beloved would arrive for a visit. That he would wait there, on his knees, with the ring in his hand.
He also had another idea – he would propose over the airport’s public address system. Taking their loved ones with them for the big day was easy, but getting through the layers of airport staff and protocol was a challenge.
It took patience and persistence but he succeeded. His valuable assistant is Laura Platz, Auckland Airport’s communications manager.
Platts helped organize, which included transporting a cake, flowers and two very excited families to the airport, plus a professional crew to film the whole thing.
Chhabra managed to record his proposal, to be played over the airport’s public address system – but it took eight tries before he managed to calm his nerves enough to get her right.
In total it took them a month to prepare for the big day while the young lady did not know what awaited her even though things did not go as she planned.
First, her flight was canceled and rescheduled for later in the day. Subsequently, she almost missed her flight because of bad trafficcausing him to rush through security to board just before the doors closed.
When he landed in Oakland she realized that her luggage had not arrived. Her first thought was to go to a service counter to complain, but her family members kept calling and encouraging her to forget the luggage and come out to meet them in the arrivals hall.
Finally, he did.
And there was her lover, down on one knee, with their families behind him holding signs that read “will you marry me?”while his pre-recorded marriage proposal played over the public address system.
“I was in shock,” he tells CNN Travel.
The couple plans to marry in India where they are both from.
Currently, they still live in two different countries and now plan to marry in a thirdwhile the honeymoon will probably take place in a quarter.
“As much as I thought Melbourne was my home,” says Riiya Shukla, “now, I would say this is my home.”
Source: News Beast
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